A group of four students and teacher from Turkey came over to Eindhoven (the Netherlands) through the European Erasmus+ exchange program. Their educated skills are oriented at hospitality in their high school. When visiting us in Eindhoven we take them along in the Sustainocratic thinking of developing core human values using these skills. This gives a new dimension to their awareness, job development, innovative creativity and self leadership.

The challenge we formulate in general is to look at their hospitality expertise in the context of developing human health in general. This can be seen from many perspectives. Let us mention a few:

health through hygiene,

healthy food purchase choices

healthy food preparation routines

good teamwork and relationship

etc

More specifically we involved them into more holistic thinking. In the Netherlands we have a large community from Turkish origin. The first generation guest workers that have created a subcommunity with difficult interaction with the local Dutch. The reasons explained by the Turkish are:

low educational background upon arrival

came mainly to work for their own economy and sending money home

felt different, not accepted

language problems

always feeling to be here temporarily and one day move back.

The sum of these arguments got them to avoid the integration effort. Now they live here for over 30 years, have their children, realize that their home country has changed and they got to belong just to their subculture only.

Even though this may have become a satisfying situation for many through accommodation there is a lot of loneliness among the groups. The core values of Sustainocracy tend to have a bonding effect, even for the more isolated communities. The participatory aspect to cocreate health, for instance, bridges differences into common areas of interest and attention.

The challenge hence for the Turkish students was to address this health issue from a social inclusion point of view. They were to use the positive invitation of food, hospitality and maybe family ties, to attract the community to our social restaurant.

For the students it was a challenge in a country they did not know, a language they did not speak, etc. Yet they performed excellent. In the end over 30 people attended. I was invited to take a seat as jury of the food and social inclusion part.